THE signing of the Will was a much shorter matter than I had anticipated. It was hurried over, to my
thinking, in indecent haste. Samuel, the footman, was sent for to act as second witness--and the pen
was put at once into my aunt's hand. I felt strongly urged to say a few appropriate words on his solemn
occasion. But Mr. Bruff's manner convinced me that it was wisest to check the impulse while he was in
the room. In less than two minutes it was all over--and Samuel (unbenefited by what I might have said)
had gone downstairs again.

Mr. Bruff folded up the Will, and then looked my way; apparently wondering whether I did or did not mean
to leave him alone with my aunt. I had my mission of mercy to fulfil, and my bag of precious publications
ready on my lap. He might as well have expected to move St. Paul's Cathedral by looking at it, as to
move Me. there was one merit about him (due no doubt to his worldly training) which I have no wish to
deny. He was quick at seeing things. I appeared to produce almost the same impression on him which
I had produced on the cabman. He too uttered a profane expression, and withdrew in a violent hurry,
and left me mistress of the field.

As soon as we were alone, my aunt reclined on the sofa, and then alluded, with some appearance of
confusion, to the subject of her Will.

Here was a golden opportunity! I seized it on the spot. In other words, I instantly opened my bag, and
took out the top publication. It proved to be an early edition--only the twenty-fifth--of the famous anonymous
work (believed to be by precious Miss Bellows), entitled The Serpent at Home. The design of the book--
with which the worldly reader may not be acquainted--is to show how the Evil One lies in wait for us in
all the most apparently innocent actions of our daily lives. The chapters best adapted to female perusal
are `Satan in the Hair Brush'; `Satan behind the Looking Glass'; `Satan under the Tea Table'; `Satan out of
the Window'--and many others.

`Give your attention, dear aunt, to this precious book--and you will give me all I ask.' With those words, I
handed it to her open, at a marked passage--one continuous burst of burning eloquence! Subject: Satan
among the Sofa Cushions.

Poor Lady Verinder (reclining thoughtlessly on her own sofa cushions) glanced at the book, and handed
it back to me looking more confused than ever.

`I'm afraid, Drusilla,' she said, `I must wait till I am a little better, before I can read that. The doctor--'

The moment she mentioned the doctor's name, I knew what was coming. Over and over again in my
past experience among my perishing fellow-creatures, the members of the notoriously infidel profession
of Medicine had stepped between me and my mission of mercy--on the miserable pretence that the
patient wanted quiet, and that the disturbing influence of all others which they most dreaded, was the
influence of Miss Clack and her Books. Precisely the same blinded materialism (working treacherously
behind my back) now sought to rob me of the only right of property that my poverty could claim--my right
of spiritual property in my perishing aunt.

`The doctor tells me,' my poor misguided relative went on, `that I am not so well to-day. He forbids me
to see any strangers; and he orders me, if I read at all, only to read the lightest and the most amusing
books. "Do nothing, Lady Verinder, to weary your head, or to quicken your pulse"--those were his last
words, Drusilla, when he left me to-day.'

There was no help for it but to yield again--for the moment only, as before. Any open assertion of the
infinitely superior importance of such a ministry as mine, compared with the ministry of the medical man,
would only have provoked the doctor to practise on the human weakness of his patient, and to threaten